News headlines in March 2012, page 19

Colombian diplomat Clara Nieto says President Juan Manuel Santos managed to work out in his favour the boycott that was looming over the sixth Summit of the Americas, after several countries threatened to stay away if Cuba was not invited.

It is late afternoon and a group of men and women begin to converge under the shade of a huge mango tree in Yambio town, the capital of South Sudan’s western Equatoria state. The group is not gathering for an ethnic, political or religious meeting. They are here to listen to the radio.

When Hurricane Luis, a category four storm, lashed the tiny Caribbean island of Anguilla on Sep. 4, 1995, its forceful waves eroded all of the beaches, leaving vast areas of the shoreline carpeted with dead sea grass and debris torn from the coral reefs.

Researchers in Argentina have isolated a sunflower gene and implanted it into corn, wheat and soybean seeds to make them more resistant to drought and soil salinity, problems increasingly faced by this South American agricultural powerhouse as a result of global warming.

The Syrian military has placed anti-personnel mines along its borders with Turkey and Lebanon, which have provided asylum for a large number of civilians fleeing the crackdown on year- long pro-democracy uprisings there, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

One-year-old Angama Ouattara lays on a rusted hospital bed, a drip attached to her tiny, left foot. Her mother, Minata, sits on the edge of the mattress, smoothing out the sheets she had to bring from home.

The latest tit-for-tat confrontation which earlier this week pitted Israel against Islamist factions operating from the Gaza Strip follows a conditioning pattern which highlights the marginalisation in the international arena of the Palestinian aspirations to freedom and independence.

The recent death of five prematurely born children in the northern German city Bremen as a result of infections acquired in the hospital has strengthened fears among environmental and health experts that massive use of antibiotics in industrial livestock farming is creating extremely resistant bacteria.

Young men and women socialise together at Tripoli University’s ‘campus B’ tarmac parking lot as they prepare to sit for examinations during this tumultuous school year.

Amidst persistent speculation over a possible Israeli military attack against Iranian nuclear facilities in the wake of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit here, a detailed new public opinion survey released Tuesday suggests that such a move would enjoy little support in the United States.